Missing Link
by 13Dawn'sShadow13
Summary: "'You're a very special boy, Lukas.' She whispered. 'Never doubt that for a second.' And while he fell asleep, the old woman's fingers worked their way down his neck where they traced a small lightning-bolt scar." My own twist on the classic Wrong-Boy-Who-Lived without the whole abusive-parents and manipulative-Dumbledore hullabaloo.
1. Prologue: The Beginning

**AN So I have read sooooo many Wrong Boy-Who-Lived stories, and I've found some fairly interesting. But you see…. A lot of them are unrealistic and the circumstances under which they happen has to figment. The characters are exaggerated and are obviously made by someone who feels some childish grudge against them and feels the need to discredit them. In other words, people make James and Lily abusive (that in itself is completely absurd and when I see those, I turn away) or Dumbledore manipulative to the point that he might as well be helping Voldemort. I thought I would try my hand at it and see what people thought of what I think is a more realistic version of what happened. Read and Review!**

It was cold. Of course it was cold. October in England was always cold. And wet, for that matter. Now, this cold was nothing special. It didn't send any odd shivers down anyone's spine, nor did it create a sense of particular foreboding. It didn't have to; for, in a small house at the end of Godric's Hallow, the Potter family seemed to have a sense of permanent apprehension placed upon them. But tonight felt much like any other cold, October night, so nothing was out of place. And for this reason, Lily and James Potter had, however reluctantly, accepted a mission for the Order of the Phoenix. Because of this, they, once again reluctantly, left their two children, Harry and Samuel Potter, to be watched by the daughter of a couple in the Order.

"—And they should be in bed by eight. There's food in the fridge for you to heat up for dinner. If they get too crazy, just conjure up some bubbles and they'll get distracted pretty easily. They like playing with their stuffed animals, too. And if you have trouble getting them to fall asleep, just turn on the radio. They'll listen to anything." Lily rambled as she nervously pulled on her coat.

"Except Celestina Warbeck." James butted in, receiving a glare from his wife. "_Anything_ but her. They may be one year old, but they have to have _some_ taste. I mean, "A Cauldron Full Of Hot, Strong Love"? That song made me want to rip my ears off."

"Oh, be quiet, James!" Lily admonished, but the corners of her mouth were twitching upwards.

"I'm just trying to get you to loosen up." He mollified. "Michelle's babysat for us before. She knows the gig." Despite this, he turned toward the eighteen-year-old girl. "We'll probably be back around 2 in the morning. When the boys are asleep, feel free to crash in the guest bedroom. I'm sure you'll be knackered by then. We'll wake you when we get home. If anything goes wrong, grab the boys and get to the apparation point in the backyard. Go to some relatives or somewhere safe, but then contact us immediately."

"Of course, Mr. Potter." The young girl smiled reassuringly. "I'm sure the boys won't be a problem."

"Blimey! They better be a problem!" James exclaimed. "They're Marauders in training, for Merlin's sake! If they don't make some trouble, I'd be very disappointed." His wife gave him an exasperated look, but Michelle just laughed.

"Of course, Mr. Potter." She joked while throwing a sympathetic look to Lily.

"Please, it's James. Whenever someone says Mr. Potter I look around for my father."

"James." Lily warned. "We should go. We don't want to be late."

"Certainly, dear." He said, kissing her on the cheek, then sauntering down the front steps to the edge of the enchantments and called out, "Bye, 'Chelle!"

"In all seriousness, Lily." Michelle said, noticing the red-headed woman's nervous glances upstairs. "I'll make sure they're good."

"Of course." Lily forced a weak smile onto her face. "I just don't like leaving them, you know?"

"Lily!" James was still waiting at the edge of the front walkway. "Now _you're_ going to make us late!"

"I'm coming!" She turned towards Michelle and managed a quick "Bye." Before running to meet her husband as they both apparated away.

~0~

"Come one, then." Michelle said as she set the wriggling toddler in his crib. One of Samuel's flailing hands smacked her across the face and she gave him a mock-reproachful look. "Is that any way to treat a lady?" The small boy just started laughing and banging his hands against the bars of his crib. Michelle picked Harry up off the floor and set him in his crib where he repeated the actions of his brother.

"Merlin!" She cried out, and glanced at her watch. "Don't you fellows ever settle down? It's already later than it should be for me to get you in bed." The boys answered by standing up and unsteadily tottering their way towards the ends of their cribs and trying to reach each other through the bars. Michelle tiredly pushed a strand of brown hair that had fallen out of her ponytail behind her ear. She'd spent most of the night chasing them around the house. It had gotten much worse when they'd found the broomsticks that Sirius had given them for their birthdays. No less than thirty repairing charms had been cast to make sure the Potters didn't come home to a house that looked like a bomb had gone off.

She plopped down in an old armchair that was sitting in the corner of the room, and with a flick of her wand turned on the radio. Half and hour later, the boys were fast asleep and Michelle was close to being the same. The soft, pleasant tones of whatever singer was on the radio was lulling her into an easy sleep. She pulled her feet up beneath her and rested her head back. Such a lovely Halloween night… She remembered her parents taking her trick-or-treating in muggle neighborhoods. She smile fondly as she thought of the one year she dressed up in a costume that was a stereotypical witch. If only those muggles knew… The entire night had been an inside joke. Her parents had made so many jok—

**Bang!**

She shot up, her wand held in a ready position and her feet landing clumsily beneath her. What the Bloody Hell was that? Her heart pounding, she cocked her head carefully to the side and listened. A series of small cracks and soft thuds could be heard. Technically, she wasn't part of the Order yet—her parents had refused profusely—but she'd tagged along on a few missions, so this sound was definitely recognizable. Falling debris.

She inched her way to the door and placed her ear against it, waiting… footsteps. That was all she needed. The Potters wouldn't be home for hours—and they certainly wouldn't have blasted their front door out of the way.

She quickly stumbled backwards and placed as many locking charms as she could on the door. Though, she smiled wryly, that wouldn't do much against someone who preferred exploding doors out of their way. She grabbed both boys out of their cribs and placed an extended-cushioning charm on all of them (She couldn't keep casting it on them, after all, and she didn't want them to get hurt). The quick footsteps could be heard plain as day now, and they were heading towards the room purposefully. Stealth wouldn't be of much use anymore, so she threw caution to the wind.

"REDUCTO!" she cried and pointed her wand at the window that showed the backyard. She could see the apparation point. Now, the only problem was getting there. She shielded the boys as the wall exploded at the same time that the door flew forward. She jumped out of the newly made hole in the wall and a green light barely missed her head. Her adrenaline filled mind couldn't register the shouting of spells or the light, mocking tone, but she knew that she needed to get out of there as quickly as possible.

The cushioning charm worked perfectly as she landed softly on the ground and took off at a run. Funny how her rushing mind didn't take time to distinguish the words of the man chasing her, but when whoever it was—and she was pretty sure she _know-who_—landed on the ground behind her as she reached the apparation point, she could hear each individual blade of October grass crunch beneath his feet.

A yell made its way through the cold night air as she spun around to apparate away, her destination in mind the first place she could think of—her cousin Greta's who lived in Berlin. As she spun around, she prepared herself for the ghastly sight of the man who people were afraid to speak the name of, but all she saw was green. And as the feeling of squeezing through a tube began, she willed it silently to go faster, because everything seemed to freeze around her.

She was frightfully aware that she was holding two children in her arms as death approached them. But she was powerless as she hugged the two innocents to her, and she felt a small thud in her chest. She knew no more.

Michelle never knew that out of the three that got hit, two survived. She didn't see the curse rebound towards the man who had shot it at them. She didn't know that as her body continued to apparate away, one of the children fell from her arms and back onto the back lawn of the Potter home. She never knew that her body appeared in her cousin Greta's house only seconds later, but there was no sign of another child with her.

No one knew what had become of Harry potter.

**I started to add on…. But it didn't sound right. This was the way to end, but you can be sure that another chapter, and some explanations, are coming soon!**


	2. Chapter 1

It was dark in Grimmauld Place. The Order had succeeded in stopping a Death Eater raid on a small wizarding village, sustaining only minor injuries, but Lily still fidgeted nervously long after they had returned from the fight. There was a feeling starting in the pit of her stomach. Call it motherly instinct, but she thought—with an almost absolute certainty—that something had gone wrong. Perhaps she was overreacting, she thought to herself. Maybe nothing had happened and she was just being silly. _Yes,_ she told herself, _I'm being stupid. I'm going to go home and everything is going to be fine_. But she just couldn't convince herself of that.

"James." Lily hissed as he continued to jabber away with Sirius. "We should get home. We don't want to send Michelle home a 4 in the morning!"

"Relax, Lil's." He smiled. "They're probably all sleeping right now."

"Even so," she said stiffly. "I think it would be best that we get home sooner rather than later."

"Ok, ok." He held up his hands in surrender. "Sorry, Padfoot, Lily Flower gets anxious when we leave the kids at home. See you around?"

"Course, Prongs." He smiled. "I'll probably stop by tomorrow and visit the little munchkins myself. That is, if Lil's doesn't mind."

"Why would it even matter?" She jested. "You'd show up either way."

"Well, I know that if you mind, it's just more reason for me to come. And eat your food." Sirius threw a look at James. "I'm jealous, mate. Your wife makes an amazing omelet."

"Yeah. It's why I married her." Lily looked indignant.

"Alright, you two." She warned, thoroughly irked now. "If you want to sit here and talk all night, go ahead. But I'm going home to my children, and I will _not_ make you breakfast tomorrow."

"Come on, Lily." James sighed. "Why don't you go ahead. I'm going to talk to Sirius about… something. I'll be home in a few minutes. Promise." He flashed her a smile, to which she only quirked an eyebrow.

"Fine." She conceded. "But if it's longer than a half an hour, I'll come back here and drag you home by the ear."

"Wouldn't expect anything less from you, Flower." He grinned. She smiled back as she apparated home.

~0~

Lily screamed. That was the only thing she could do as she took in the scene before her. The moment she landed, she knew she'd been right. Her left foot had landed on a piece of wood that had once been part of the front door. The front garden was burning. It was funny how sometimes fire could give warmth pleasantly, but this fire burned hotter than anything she'd ever encountered. And to Lily, it sent the message it was intended. She'd just appeared in Hell.

She felt numb as tears started rolling down her cheeks and her screams mixed with sobs. Ignoring the fire, she ran through the demolished house—so full of memories that she couldn't bear to think of at the moment—towards the only room that mattered to her.

This door, too, was splintered into a million pieces. And her hopes were shattered as she looked at the giant hole where there had once been a quaint little window. Lily fell to her knees, as they could no longer hold her standing up. Everything blurred together as tears ravaged her eyes.

Michelle had never contacted them. If they had been able to get away, surely she would have. But she hadn't. Lily was sure she was dead. She mourned the loss of so much in one night.

She didn't know how much time had passed before she got control of herself enough to know what she had to do. Shakily, she got to her feet, pulled out her wand, and concentrated on Grimmauld Place, on James.

~0~

"I'm not entirely sure that Peter should stay as our secret keeper, Sirius." James persisted. They'd been going back and forth about this for the past ten minutes, and he wasn't sure that they would finish by Lily's deadline. "It's not that I don't trust him. But lets face it; he's not the best dueler. Someone could easily get a hold of him and force it out of him."

"The same could happen to me." Sirius argued. "Look, the whole point in doing this was not that I didn't want to be your secret keeper. We did this so that people would _think_ that it was me, and if anything happened, I couldn't give anything up if I tried."

"Look, Sirius." James sighed. "I don't know ho—"

They were cut off with the loud crack of apparation, and the bang of something hitting the ground. James hadn't even known he'd taken his wand out until he found himself pointing it towards the direction of the sound.

"_JAMES!"_ He lowered his wand. It was Lily. Had it already been half an hour? Couldn't be. "_JAMES!" _But then he registered her voice a bit more. She was hysterical. Something huge had happened.

"Lily?" He called out, running towards her, though he couldn't see her yet. "Lily, what's wrong?" There was no answer, but James heard a sound he hadn't heard in year. Lily was sobbing. It was the most heart wrenching sound he'd ever heard. She was crying harder than when her parents had been killed, and that was saying something. Already, James' mind was flying to the worst. Had she been hurt? Were the children ok? When he finally reached her in the kitchen, he found her on the floor, curled up.

"_What happened?_" He whispered, to scared for an answer. An answer that she couldn't give. Lily raised her head, but the words stuck in her throat. To say the words would make it too real. She would wake up soon. This was just a nightmare. She'd wake up, and James would tell her to stop worrying and she would hold her children until she couldn't feel her arms. Only she wasn't waking up.

Something was clawing at her chest, making it impossible to breath and creating a giant hole. How could she go on like this? How could she possibly live in a world where her babies didn't exist?

She felt herself hoisted up and she was looking into the fearful hazel eyes of the man she loved. Don't take me back there, she wanted to tell him. She couldn't possibly survive with the image of the flames in her mind. But she couldn't find the words to tell him, and they were apparating away, towards the nightmare that she couldn't wake up from.

~0~

Perhaps it was destined to be that way, but the Potters could not console themselves with this fact. Lily sobbed with relief when they found Samuel in the backyard, completely unharmed except for a small lightning bolt cut on the side of his neck. But yet, as the months past and turned to a year, they were hard pressed to find people willing to look for their missing son.

A grave was made in the graveyard in Godric's hallow. This really drove it home for James. An empty grave. Merely a hole in the ground, much like the one he felt in his chest. And it was when he saw this grave that he broke down, truly and wholly, for the first time in so long.

They hadn't even been able to find Peter. It had been _his_ friend that betrayed them. _His_ friend brought them to this point. But when they went to his home, hatred and sorrow both burning in his eyes, there was nothing there.

For the first few months the press left the grieving family alone, but past that was too much. The Potters understood to a degree. Voldemort was finally gone. Wasn't that what they had worked towards for years? Of course people were excited, but that didn't make the pain any better.

Dumbledore had stepped in and answered most of the questions, allowing the family some more space. But he himself had been forced to question them, to find the answers for these.

The media had named Samuel the Boy-Who-Lived, as it was speculated that the killing curse cast by Voldemort had hit him, but rebounded, killing the Dark Lord once and for all.

Though, Albus had told the Potters, this might not be the same forever. Voldemort may return. And in that case, Samuel would most likely be the one who had to destroy him. This news rattled the Potters, but they were accepting of this fact. They would agree to anything right now, they just didn't want to lose their other child. Anything, they had said, anything to keep him safe.

~0~

**Years later**

"Mum! Mum! Mum!" The five-year-old boy shouted. "Mum!"

"What, Sammy?" Lily asked, exhausted. She looked over at the boy, sitting on the ground. He was turning out to be quite the handsome young man. Messy Potter-hair rested on his head, but it was a nice red-brown shade that reminded her of leaves in the fall. Samuel hadn't gotten either of their eyes, instead inheriting the dark blue her mother had had. He was quite the child, but he left her in the dust most of the time, always running around.

Having a small child was no easy feat, and James being injured from an auror mission left her to take care of Sam and their one-year-old daughter, Sarah Dorea Potter, was enough to make her want to pull out her hair.

"Wanna know what tomorrow is?" He said excitedly, despite having asked her the same question all day.

"What's tomorrow?" She played along.

"My birthday!" He exclaimed. "I'm turning 6!" he held up seven fingers before realizing, and putting one down.

"Tomorrow?" She gasped. "Your birthday? It can't be. I vividly remember your birthday being last year." He laughed. "So what would you like to do for your birthday, Sammy?"

"Quidd-ich!" He cried, still not quite used to the word. She smiled. James always took Sam to a professional Quidditch match. She wasn't sure how he would do it this year, having a broken leg, but she was sure he would find a way to do it somehow.

"That would be fun, wouldn't it?" she murmured, her mind wandering for a second… wondering if Harry would have liked Quidditch as much as his brother… but she quickly shook that thought away. She folded some more laundry while keeping a close eye on Sam to make sure he didn't do anything drastic to keep from boredom.

She had been sad to learn that he had taken on some of the trouble-making personalities of his father and godfather. By the age of four, he'd already turned her hair purple and skewed the lenses of James' glasses so that he kept walking into walls. She was slightly worried, as he hadn't said anything for the past five minutes. She was about to ask him why he was so quiet when he asked her a question that she had not been expecting.

"Mum, why do we visit the cemetery every year on my birthday?" He wondered innocently. Lily was taken aback, unsure how to answer. She thought for a moment before answering.

"Sammy, when you were brought into your father's and my life, you weren't alone. You had a brother. A twin brother, which means you were born on the same day, so he had the same birthday as you."

"But why isn't he here now, mum?" He gazed at her genuinely interested.

"Because when you were both young, there was a very bad man who hurt a lot of people. When you were both very young, that man took your brother away from us." She finished sadly. "So we go to the cemetery to celebrate his birthday, too. Because it feels nice to have your birthday celebrated, doesn't it?"

"Can't we get him back from this bad man, Mummy?"

"No, Sweetie." Lily said this carefully. "He's gone somewhere we can't get him back."

"What was his name?" Sam was obviously thinking about something.

"Harry." Lily forced herself to keep a smile on her face for her child. She didn't want him to feel bad for asking. "His name was Harry."

"Oh." Was all Sam said, looking out the window. And that was all that was said about that subject for some time in the Potter household.

That night, however, when Lily walked into Sam's room to put him to bed, she found him with his coloring stuff sprawled out across the floor, staring intently at a piece of paper on the ground.

"What are you doing, Sammy?" She asked, a smile in her voice.

"Making a card." He drew a few clumsy lines before looking up at her.

"A card?" Lily asked. "For who?"

"For Harry!" he said, lifting the paper up to show her. "For his birthday!"

Lily could only smile and nod as she watched Samuel go back to drawing a cake on the front of the card. She told him she'd be back in a minute, and she walked out into the hall, thinking about the exchange that had just happened. A few tears fell down her cheeks, but a smile graced her face the entire time. By the time she walked back in, she had collected herself enough to seem normal.

"Mummy? Will you help me write the inside of the card?" Sam pleaded.

"Of course, sweetie." She agreed. "What do you want it to say?"

"Say Happy Birthday! And tell him he should come see a Quidditch game with us!" Lily's smile faded slightly as she realized her son thought he would be able to meet his brother someday, but she obliged.

"Anything else?" She asked softly.

"Ask him if he likes cake!" Sam said. "We should bring him some birthday cake!" Lily wrote it down silently, not sure what to do with such a bittersweet moment.

She merely put Samuel to bed after they had finished, and walked into her's and James' bedroom, where he was already lying down.

"What took you so long to put him to sleep?" James asked sleepily. "I was waiting for you." Lily got her nightgown on, and slipped in next to her husband. She wasn't sure what to say, but finally decided not to say anything, so that he wouldn't have anything distracting him from his son's birthday tomorrow.

"I had to let him stay up a little longer." She said, running over the night in her head again. "He was coloring."

**Well… that was longer than I expected it to be, not that you guys are complaining or anything, right? Not much to say except let me know what you think. Oh, and Dumbledore will be **_**kinda**_** manipulative, but not like in most stories. And it won't be until later, because lets face it, we didn't notice anything except grandfatherly affection until the fifth book.**

**Peace out!**


	3. Chapter 2

**Hey guys! Now some of you might be wondering how they survived, and that will come in later. It's a different reason from what was in the book but I hope you'll find it satisfactory (though it's not in this chapter) anyway, I hope you enjoy. Introducing… Lukas Schulz! Oh, and just to make sure it's not confusing, Oma means Grandma in german.**

The sun was just going down, but in a small house in rural Belgium, a boy, merely eight-years-old, was being laid down for bed. The house, which lay in a field of tall grasses that when on for miles around, was owned by an old woman named Edith Schulz where she lived with her grandson.

"Oma?" Asked the boy as he sat on his bed. He was an average height, but was otherwise quite small, despite the generous helping of food Edith gave him in hopes that he would grow. He had black hair, that, much to Edith's amusement, never laid flat on his head and a pair of round glasses rested on his nose due to terrible eyesight. "Oma? Will you tell me the story?"

"What story, Lukas?" The old woman asked with a smile, knowing exactly what story he was referring to.

"The one you always tell, Oma!" He exclaimed, bouncing up and down in excitement.

"Oh, that old story." Edith looked kindly down at her grandson. "Why, I told it to you not but two days ago! You know it better than I do, now!"

"But you tell it better!" he peered pleadingly up through the lenses of his glasses. "?"

"If you insist." She pulled the quilt at the end of the bed up over his chest. "But you have to go to bed straight away after, Lukas. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, Oma." He said, grinning all the while, waiting for the story to begin.

"Now, there was once a young woman who lived in a house in the grass fields." The old woman began. "And every week, she would walk for hours to go get food for her family. When this girl was nineteen, however, her parents both got very sick."

"How sick?" Lukas asked.

"Dreadfully sick." Edith replied. "So sick that they couldn't bear it. And a few months later, they had to leave the young girl to go to a better place where they wouldn't be sick. But they couldn't come back. That young girl was left alone, but still, every week she would walk to the town and buy the groceries with the money her parent had left her. One day, in the town, she caught the eye of a boy, and they fell in love. After a year, he asked her to marry him, and they were happy for a very long time. "

"Did something happen?" Lukas was leaning toward the old woman, despite having heard the story many times.

"Yes, something did happen." Edith looked down sadly. "There was an accident in town with a car, and the boy had to leave to be with the girl's parents. She was left all alone, to live in the house in the grass fields. But every night she could, she would go to a spot in the field, where the grass would no longer grow, and she'd lay down to look at the stars. Sometimes, she thought maybe she could their faces up there, shining brightly where she couldn't go."

"She was lonely, wasn't she?" Lukas said, eyes drifting downwards.

"Terribly lonely." Edith watched him fondly. "But each night she would do this, and she did until she grew very old. And one night when she went out to watch the stars—"

"There was a huge shooting star." Lukas cut in at his favorite part, mumbling tiredly.

"Yes, there was a huge shooting star." The old woman's gaze started wandering. "It streaked through the sky so quickly that she couldn't be sure that it had even happened, and she thought for a moment that it hadn't, until she saw something falling from the sky."

"What fell from the sky, Oma?" He murmured with his eyes focused on Edith, determined to stay awake to hear the ending.

"She couldn't tell as it fell, because it was falling so quickly, but the moment before it hit the ground, it slowed down like something was cushioning it's fall, and landed softly on the ground." Edith told the young boy. "But as she walked towards it, she realized that it was a child. A boy with a tuft of soft black hair on his head."

"Hmmmm." Lukas's eyes were closing slowly as he listened to the old woman's voice.

"And the most amazing part was that he was fast asleep." Edith's voice grew an edge of wonder. "But when she picked him up, he opened his eyes and looked at her." She started running her wrinkled hands tenderly through Lukas' hair. "They were the most beautiful green she had ever seen." Her hand moved down as she traced her thumb softly by the side of his eye, then took off his glasses and set them on a table by his bed before continuing on softly. "And she knew in that moment that she would love this boy more than anything she had ever loved in her whole life."

"Really?" Lukas mumbled softly, rolling onto his side and keeping his eyes closed.

"Really." Edith continued to run her fingers through his messy hair soothingly. "Because when she looked at this boy, she knew that she'd been given a gift from the stars. And a person simply doesn't dislike a gift from the stars."

Lukas merely rolled over to the other side and breathed deeply.

"You're a very special boy, Lukas." She whispered. "Never doubt that for a second." And while he fell asleep, her fingers worked down to the side of his neck where they traced a small lightning bolt scar. She smiled again and with a twinkle in her eye, she leaned down and kissed his forehead. "A very special boy."

With one last look at the child in the bed, she turned off the light, and left him to his dreams.

**Sorry that it's a shorter one (much shorter than the last) but I thought that I would leave it as just the chapter where Lukas is introduced. And I'm sure we all know who Lukas is… if not, well… to put it kindly… go get a clue :) I'll be back as soon as I can!**


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